Albert Einstein

During his life he became a well known and respected professor, many schools benefited from his lectures and begged for more: "In 1909, after serving as a lecturer at the University of Bern, Einstein was called as an associate professor to the University of Zurich. Two years later, he was appointed a full professor at the German University in Prague. Within another year and a half, Einstein became a full professor at the FIT."( Encyclopedia of World Biography). This quote shows his accomplishments as a professor and his influence to the scientific world. His words were heard by thousands of ears, and his teachings remain relevant to this day. Along with these German universities, Einstein also lectured in the United States: "On several occasions, Einstein had visited the California Institute of Technology, and on his last trip to the United States, Abraham Flexner offered Einstein--on Einstein's terms--a position in the newly conceived and funded Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. He went there in 1933."( Encyclopedia of World Biography). The schools he taught at were prestigious and being any part of them would be a monumental life achievement. Doing a fraction of what he did in his academic career would be considered a monumental achievement. These things don't exactly make him a hero, but the formed the foundation that allowed him to share his theories that changed the world.

Einstein contributed vastly to the world of science. Many people know him for his most famous theory, the theory of relativity E=mc2, in fact that's probably the first thing any of you thought when I mentioned Albert Einstein. The idea behind this theory occurred to him when he was 16: "Einstein consciously searched for a general principle of nature that would hold the key to the explanation of a paradox that had occurred to him when he was 16: if, on the one hand, one runs at, say, four miles per hour alongside a train moving at four miles per hour, the train appears to be at rest; if, on the other hand, it were possible to run alongside a ray of light, neither experiment nor theory suggests that the ray of light--an oscillating electromagnetic wave--would appear to be at rest. Einstein eventually saw that he could postulate that no matter what the velocity of the observer, he must always observe the same velocity c for the velocity of light: roughly 186,000 miles per second. He also saw that this postulate was consistent with a second postulate: if an observer at rest and an observer moving at constant velocity carry out the same kind of experiment, they must get the same result. These are Einstein's two postulates of his special theory of relativity. Also in 1905, Einstein proved that his theory predicted that energy E and mass m are entirely interconvertible according to his famous equation, E=mc2."( Encyclopedia of World Biography). Without this theory, the world of physics would not be what it is today. Nuclear power would be impossible without this equation, and that means the world of clean energy would be missing its biggest contender. Another ground breaking discovery was the photoelectric effect: "Although Einstein's famous equation for the photoelectric effect--for which he won the Nobel Prize of 1921--appears so natural today, it was an extremely bold prediction in 1905. Not until a decade later did R.A. Millikan finally succeed in experimentally verifying it to everyone's satisfaction. But while Einstein's equation was bold, his light quantum hypothesis was revolutionary: it amounted to reviving Newton's centuries-old idea that light consists of particles."( Encyclopedia of World Biography). This theory was especially important to quantum physics, Einstein's insights formed the groundwork for both Schrodinger's and Heisenberg's discoveries. He paved a road to help understand the workings of the universe.

Lastly and most importantly, Albert Einstein should be considered a hero because of how he was able to become one of the smartest men in human history from a child who couldn't speak fluently until he was nine. No one could have guessed that he would become one of the most intelligent minds in the world of science: "Einstein was slow in learning how to speak. His parents even consulted a doctor. He also had a cheeky rebelliousness toward authority, which led one headmaster to expel him and another to amuse history by saying that he would never amount to much."( Walter Isaacson). People thought he would never amount to anything however, despite the opinions and speculations of his teachers and doctors he was able to rocket his way up to my previously mentioned facts. Although he was believed to be mentally inept due to his trouble with learning language, he began coming up with complex ideas early on: "In 1935, a rabbi in Princeton showed him a clipping of the Ripley's column with the headline "Greatest living mathematician failed in mathematics." Einstein laughed. "I never failed in mathematics," he replied, correctly. "Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus." In primary school, he was at the top of his class and "far above the school requirements" in math."(Walter Isaacson). Despite his failures in English, he was extremely advanced in mathematics. Even without being able fully use the medium of language he was able to learn and comprehend the world of science.

Albert Einstein is my hero for his accomplishments despite his learning complications. He proved that just because you fail at something doesn't mean you will fail at life, his story is a source of inspiration. For me a hero is someone who positively affects society or inspires others to do so, Albert Einstein inspires me to hope and to continue doing what I love.

Works Cited

"Albert Einstein." PBS. PBS. Web. 09 May 2012. .

"Albert Einstein." Notable Mathematicians. Gale, 2008. Gale Biography In Context. Web. Dec 10 2013.

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http://ic.galegroup.com/

"Albert Einstein." St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Sara Pendergast and Tom 

Pendergast. Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 10 Dec 2013.

Document URL
http://ic.galegroup.com/

"Albert Einstein." World of Mathematics. Gale, 2006. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 10 Dec 2013

Encyclopaedia Britannica
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Isaacson, Walter. "Lists." TIME.com. TIME, 05 Apr. 2007. Web. 10 Dec. 2013.

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